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Solid Snake wins the first ever Pixels and Grids Beard of the Week award for an entire series of games worth of badass stubble to full on jungle growth (and in his later years, a Wal-Mart greeter moustache, but we’re not counting that. It looked dumb. Don’t argue. It did.)

Wow. In part one of my article, I asked for your thoughts on a clearly divisive and complicated issue. Boy did I ever get some. I heard from you, our loyal readers. I heard from ex-military vets. I heard from former recruits. I even heard from Al-Jazeera! But, perhaps most notably I heard from fellow PNG’er Pete Irace in the form of his counter-point article: The Case AGAINST Video Games as an Army Recruitment Tool.

Get ready Pete, this one may go on for a while.

While I respect the amount of research you put into your rebuttal, I can’t help but come away with one overriding impression that I took away from your piece: disappointment.

I lifted the book up to my face and blew a layer of dust off its surface. I felt like some kind of fictionalized archeologist. It occurred to me, briefly, that I should have replaced the book with something of equal weight, but I quickly dismissed the thought. I found a secluded place and began to pore over its content.

Well kids, it’s Monday, and that means that all the weekend freebies are over and its back to business as usual. Its not all bad though, as I’ve decided to come out of my cave and grace your corneas with my thoughts. Let’s get down to it.

In case Dave’s earlier post about his 2008 game of the year wasn’t enough to convince you to run to Steam and download this gem, creator Jonathan Blow has made it, I dare say, mandatory. Rather than simply port the masterpiece to Steam (and that would have been fine for $15), Blow has confirmed in the Steam forums that he plans to support the PC’s thriving mod community in the form of a map and level editor and photoshop support for in-game graphics.

Here’s what gaming’s newest hero had to say ripped straight from the forum:

Yeah, after I get a new version out in a few days that fixes the problems some people are having, and when more people have played/finished the game, I am going to post some documentation for the editor. The way it works is you can make levels with the editor (up to a full game, potentially) and run that with -universe later… also a tool will be released that lets you take Photoshop files and import them into the game, if you want to put new graphics in your levels.

Braid is one of two more traditional style platormers that were showered with game of the year awards for 2008, the other being Little Big Planet. Now that Braid boasts the same creative tools that can be found in the much more expensive PS3 title you should be doing only one of two things as you close this post 1) Buy it! Or, if you’ve bought it already 2) Play it.

The gaming deals don’t stop this weekend – Steam is offering both Peggle and Peggle Nights for only $9.99. The deal lasts for this weekend only, so if you haven’t picked either of these up yet, there is no better time than the present!

Interplay is in the middle of fighting bankruptcy, and has decided that the key to survival is selling off its Fallout IP. Bethesda Softworks, with its Sauron-like eye atop its tower of Oblivion, takes notice of Interplay’s desperate flailings to keep afloat. In the Interplay offices, an exceptionally strong crying bout is suddendly interrupted by the sounds of trumpets. The down-trodden developers press their dirty hands and faces against the even dirtier windows like children from a Dicken’s novel. There, gleaming in the sunlight, march a procession of armored horses, each carrying a person of noble bearing. A flag they carry catches the breeze, declaring these knights as hailing from BethSoft.

Behind closed doors, a deal is forged, and Interplay relinquishes its rights to all things Fallout; or did they? Perhaps is was mercy. Maybe it was mockery. Some even suggest that it was Bethesda’s pompous self-regard. Whatever the case, Interplay did hold on to one piece of their once golden son. The piece they retained was the rights to an MMO. (cue the wavy lines again)

Welcome to PNG’s 100th post! We have a little surprise for you guys after the break. We have to get this little matter of some news out of the way first. Not a whole lot going on interesting even with GDC 2009 happening as we speak.

If you’re an owner of Fallout 3 for Xbox 360, you’ll find that Bethesda’s much awaited second DLC pack was unceremoniously yanked off of Xbox Live shortly after it was made available. Apparently, they uploaded a corrupt version of the English file that was resulting in some pretty crazy glitches. Giant Bomb has the story here.

Ubisoft’s deal of the day on Steam happens to be a game near and dear to Logan’s heart. Prince of Persia is on sale for 50% bringing it to a paltry $24.99 over hereand in the Steam client. No word on if they’ll discount the ending for you also.

Welcome to Pixels and Grids!

I'm currently in the process of giving PNG a new look. Expect a more personal one man blog type atmosphere with at least one article, review, or interview per week. All previous authors still have access and you may find a special guest post from them every once in awhile. Bro-Downs will only be recorded and posted on special occasions. While a shell of it's former self, PNG is going to stick around just for pure entertainment and diversionary value. Pop by every once in a while and as always, keep rolling those 20's.
James Jones